Chris Snelling owns one of Britain’s only free-range quail farms.

Surrounded by hills, with a fresh stream running through the field, insulated sheds and aviaries big enough to fly around in, there could not be a more idyllic place to live, as a quail, than at the bottom of a quiet field set among 18 acres of farmland in the hamlet of Littlewindsor, Dorset. 'They are very happy little birds,’ their keeper, Chris Snelling, admits.

Snelling, 55, hasn’t always kept quails, but two years ago he and his wife, Clare, 47, were shocked by a television programme they saw about the birds. 'The majority are imported from France where they are intensively farmed – they’re not able to fly or graze – and we wondered if there was a better way of doing it,’ Clare says. Their eldest son, Ollie, now 20, came up with a business plan and, along with their neighbours, who had spare land, they decided to buy 150 quail’s eggs with the aim of having one of Britain’s only free-range quail’s egg farms. In the first year 90 birds hatched; now they have 300 birds – half a light-coloured Italian breed and half a darker Japanese species – with capacity to double their covey.Snelling gets up at 5.30am every day and rides down to the sheds. For birds so small, the quails get through a lot of food – 100kg of free-range, GM-free, high-protein pellets every week. 'They each produce an egg a day, so they need a lot of energy,’ he says. After a 100-mile round trip to his day job working for Bournemouth council, he does his evening round at 7pm, collecting the eggs and ushering the quails into their sheds. 'Hens put themselves to bed every night, but quails don’t so we have to herd them in,’ he says with a sigh.

In the kitchen the tiny eggs, each with markings distinctive to individual birds, are arranged on tea towels. Clare spends her evenings washing and drying them, before sorting and packing them into boxes of 12. She has two days off a week from her job as a district nurse and on those days sorts orders and delivers the eggs. Clients include the River Cottage and local pubs, while further afield stockists include the Ginger Pig chain of butchers and Selfridges.

Quail’s eggs seem seasonal – we are used to seeing them in summer salads – but the birds lay the same volume all year round. 'Last March we sold out because it was an early spring,’ Chris says, 'but this year sales started a few months later.’ To deal with the surplus stock Clare has been pickling the eggs and selling them to pubs as bar snacks. The business, which has a turnover of about £15,000 per year, is now investing in an egg-peeling machine from China.

The hours and care the Snellings set aside to care for their birds indicate how devoted they are – but they have quickly developed a farmer’s mentality. When I ask what happens to the male birds (they retain only females for laying eggs and fertilised eggs do not keep as well),